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How to Make Japanese Ramen — the Way Naruto Uzumaki Eats It! | Healthy Ramen Recipe

by Nindo Mom on April 10, 2011

Naruto Uzumaki, the main character of the hit Japanese anime TV show Naruto, has a favorite food: ramen. His favorite ramen recipe? He LOVES the stuff made at the Ichi Raku Ramen shop in the Hidden Leaf village. (Of course, if Naruto can’t get Ichi Raku ramen, he never hesitates to eat the instant stuff in a cup.)

Watching Naruto often puts my son and me in the mood for ramen. But because I could never find an actual recipe for the ramen eating by Naruto, I decided to do some research.

I started by looking through our Naruto DVDs to find a scene with a close-up of Naruto’s ramen. When I finally found an appropriate scene, I paused the DVD on the image. Then, I “Googled” a variety of phrases related to Japanese ramen ingredients: “Japanese ramen recipe,” “ramen recipe Japan,” “genuine ramen recipe”–things like that.

Once I had a wide variety of windows open on my computer with different ramen recipes I’d found–all with varying ingredients, of course– I carefully compared them to the ramen image I had frozen on the Naruto DVD. Using this method, and drawing on some of Naruto’s dialog from the TV episodes, I was able to collect the details of the ingredients Naruto most often eats in his ramen, as well as how it looks when it’s served at at Ichi Raku’s shop.

Not many people eat the same kind of sandwich all the time. Likewise, Naruto Uzumaki doesn’t just stick to eating just one kind of ramen. However, the recipe that follows seems to be a fairly accurate compilation of the key ingredients that Naruto most frequently enjoys in his ramen on the show.

Instructions for preparing Ramen:

Cook curly noodles (see photo) by boiling gently for about 5 minutes, until just tender. Remove immediate from heat and rinse noodles in just enough cool water so they can be handled but not so much that the noodles are cold. Set aside.

Simmer spring water. Add 4-8 tsp Honzukuri Red Miso Paste, depending on taste, and stir in.
(I use miso paste rather than instant miso soup because the paste is much less expensive for the volume of soup you’ll get. I like the Honzukuri brand of miso paste the best because of its full flavor and because it contains only all-natural ingredients: soybean, rice, salt, rice koji, and water. And, because it’s made in Japan, its full of authentic Japanese flavor.)

In each of two large ramen noodle bowls, place 2 cups of the prepared miso broth. Add 1/2 cooked curly noodles to each bowl.

Arrange toppings in sections around the bowl, with the chicken in the middle.*

Serve immediately, along with soy sauce for additional seasoning (if desired) and chopsticks for eating.

Enjoy!

Notes and Optional Ingredient Substitutions:

Naruto never mentions eating his ramen this way, but I love to add about 4 tsp hot pepper sauce to the miso broth. De-lic-ious! But this is a matter of taste, and depends on whether you’re in the mood for something spicy. My 10-year-old son enjoys the ramen this way, as well.

The best, most authentic red miso paste I’ve found is on AsianFoodGrocer.com. (Their site is currently offering free shipping for orders over $100.)

Instead of Red Miso paste, you can easily substitute Honzuriki White Miso Paste or Better Than Bullion Chicken base. On occasion, I have used half of the Red Miso paste and half of the Better than Bullion, and it’s awesome.

One ingredient I did NOT include in my recipe is fish cake. Naruto would often be seen with a slice of of fish cake looking like a pinwheel — ironically, also known as naruto — on top of his ramen. But because this food is pretty hard to find here in the United States — and because it likely won’t sit well with what most Americans are used to eating — I’m omitting it from this recipe. But if you can find it, you could certainly give it a try!

The tomatoes are my own substitution, and not commonly eaten by Naruto on his TV series, as far as I know. I just couldn’t resist adding the tomatoes to my own ramen, though, because they taste so awesome in the miso broth.

I always use Eggland’s Best brand eggs because of their increased nutrition levels — and because they taste the best of any egg I’ve eaten.

Thanks so much! I did a lot of hunting through episodes to find the illustrated close-up of the ramen that let me decipher the ingredients. We love ramen here at my house–especially now that we have the “Naruto” recipe!

I’ve looked up the “Naruto ramen recipe” before, but this makes it much more plain and informative than what I’ve found in the past. I have a good friend in Indonesia, and it’s because of her in large part that I was able to move closer to having ramen like Naruto always does. And like you said, watching the show makes me hungry, too! I love noodles anyway, so it’s hard to watch on an empty stomach.

Anyway, I wanted to say that I was heavily “Americanized” with my ramen preparation, and everyone I know ate the instant ramen the same way: cook the noodles, drain, sprinkle added seasoning on top, “enjoy” sticky, dry noodles. I’m not kidding when I say that this always gave me a case of heartburn….I tried to save money before by eating ramen, and I thought I could because of my love of noodles. However, the heartburn caused many unopened packages of instant ramen to find their way to the trash can…..thank God for Naruto and Asian friends! Finally, I have become an an “amateur ramen aficionado” amongst my friends! Not only that, no heartburn and it’s one of my favorite dishes! Thanks for the article, I can’t wait to throw all of this together (haven’t tried the paste and noodles you mentioned, but I have tried thin sliced turkey, and it is awesome!). PS — I use a nice, spicy creole seasoning and it works wonders! I mixed in a touch of honey earlier tonight with my spicy rice noodles and it was great! Living in Louisiana gives me access to some good spicy stuff. 😀

Good point! Yes, I did mention at the very end of the recipe–in one of the closing paragraphs–that Naruto often has a slice of fish cake as a topping for his ramen. (Interestingly, the name for fish cake in Japanese is NARUTO!) If you watch the anime, the fish cake is that swirly looking shape on top of the noodles. It’s not easy to find this ingredient in America; when you do find it, you may find it to be differently shaped and/or colored than the one seen on the Naruto anime.

The broth and the noodles should be hot–the veggie toppings are not heated.

If you don’t like the toppings “fresh” this way, you could opt to stir them right into the broth before removing it from the heat to warm the veggies–but this will have the effect of softening the veggies somewhat.

What an awesome post! I was deciding what to cook for dinner for my son and I when he gets home tonight after the YMCA, and had an epiphany to cook ramen after he asked me what it was yesterday while we were watching Naruto.

I just want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH for putting this recipe online. I really looking forward to collect all these ingredients together for a happy taste, and then put on Naruto. <3 Thank you, thank you! 😀

I know this is pretty old, but I find that you can substitute the fish cake, which, as you said, looks like a pinwheel, with a carrot thinly sliced and cut to look like a pinwheel. Several ramen houses here in Houston’s China Town use carrots instead of fish cake.

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